Month: August 2016

It’s only August 2016 but I bet I am not the only one looking for to releases for 2017 under YA right? Taken from the listopia book list on Goodreads YA Novels of 2017, these are the ones that have so far caught my eye and what I know about them so far!

OK, I had a sneak peek at this through a free chapter sampler released onto Amazon Kindle and my word was left feeling excited. A new Dystopia set on a planet with the power of various gifts given to its people and a ton of action? January needs to hurry up right now! Only thing about the sampler, it was chapter 7 when I thought the sampler was the first chapter but as a new reader to her books, I love my epic Dystopian YA.

A pretty cover but with an adventurous twist, it’s about a girl named Scarlett who lives her dad and sister until plans of marriage are forced onto her by her dad. Her biggest dream however is to go to the Caraval, a performance that happens only once a year. When her sister gets kidnapped, she has to play a ruthless game to try and find her in the nick of time. Again, another January release. I sadly wasn’t able to get an ARC of this, I tried 😦 but I’m getting some Hunger Games vibes off this, I hope that’s not too strange hahaha.

Holy maloney, the cover is freaking gorgeous! I’m probably biased since blue is my favourite colour and roses are my favourite flowers ever. An interesting kickass fantasy this time i’m getting Snow White and Red Queen vibes off this (I’m weird, sorry!) but the novel is about Anna and she cannot perform any form of spell whatsoever until she breaks her sister’s debutante spell. Anna at only sixteen gets banished to Hungary as a rebellion starts to strike. This is a March release but we all know that I would love to read this at this moment in time 🙂

Can I be honest here and say when I found out that Strange the Dreamer was getting pushed back six months I was really upset? I haven’t read any of her books before but the teaser sort of suspenseful blurb on Goodreads made me sit up and take notice:

Strange the Dreamer is the story of:
The aftermath of a war between gods and men
A mysterious city stripped of its name
A mythic hero with blood on his hands
A young librarian with a singular dream
A girl every bit as perilous as she is imperiled
Alchemy and blood candy, nightmares and godspawn, moths and monsters, friendship and treachery, love and carnage.

I’m a total sucker for spy novels and when I saw this was selected by Swoon Reads for publication earlier this year, EEEEEEEK! OK, the first in a brand new series, Reagan is destined to be a spy for the most secretive agency: The Black Angels. However, that plan is flipped upside down when she falls in love with the boy next door. She has to make a decision that could change everything around her. A January release.

Yay, a teen comedy with a dollop of romance mixed in! A Romeo and Juliet school production involving two girls, Amanda cast as Juliet and Emily who is her understudy. It doesn’t help that Emily fancies the guy who plays Romeo- real name Wes. When Amanda ends up in hospital, Emily has to be the new Juliet but with her lack of study into the script, it could end up turning into a real faux pas. This is a February release also selected by Swoon Reads for publication!

Have any other YA 2017 releases you are looking forward to? Leave them down in the comments section of this post.

Alice x

(The covers are all pretty ahhhh 😀 )

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I received a nomination for this award by Megan over at Bookslayer Reads so thanks so much Megan for nominating me. Also looking through any messages on my un-replied to list, I noticed that I was actually nominated for this several months ago by Monique over at That Wild Soul so thank you Monique, i’m so sorry that I missed that from you from ages ago 🙂

Here are the rules that come with the nomination!

-Show the award on your blog

-Thank the person that has nominated you

-Share 7 different facts about yourself

-Nominate 15 blogs of your choice

-Link your nominees and let them know of your nomination

– My birthday is July 14th.

– Aside from collecting books, I collect Vinyl records both singles and LPs for my record player which I received as a birthday present last year.

– My favourite season is summer!

– My make-up must haves are lipgloss, mascara and concealer.

– My favourite band is Paramore.

– My biggest dream is to go to University!

– I went to the London 2012 Olympic games on Super Saturday!

So! I nominate the following people to take part in this award, if you’ve already done it or have been nominated, I’m super sorry!

Lovesgreatreadsblog

Books, Pens and Needles

A Haven for Book Lovers

Have a great day everyone!

Alice x

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Hello friends! I’m Alice and after feeling inspired to type up some new blog posts today, I thought let’s reveal some of the biggest trilogies in Young-Adult Fiction I haven’t read yet. Since there are a sheer number of them, I’m only going to mention five since otherwise, we will be here for like six months and we don’t want that XD

So, onto the five trilogies!

1, The Slated Trilogy by Teri Terry.

This is one that I feel very awkward about when it comes to explaining why I haven’t read this trilogy yet. Back in the New Year, I went to my local indie bookstore and grabbed what I thought was the first book in the trilogy at a very cheap price. Turned out to be the third book, oops. But with some quick thinking and planning, the bookstore very kindly ordered the first two in for me at a discounted price because I explained about my book blog. I was planning to binge-read the trilogy over the February half-term break but that didn’t happen due to reviews due for publishers on other books. So, I plan to read this trilogy by the end of this year at some point.

2, The Delirium Trilogy by Lauren Oliver.

I own the first book in paperback but not the other two. The new covers in the image above are super pretty by the way, so currently am looking out for those editions. But yeah, a lot of people have recommended this trilogy to me because I mentioned that I enjoyed The Hunger Games and was looking for an heart-racing, action packed trilogy to read as a follow-up to that one. I own another one of Lauren’s books called Panic which I still have yet to read.

3, The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth.

I know, I’m sooooooo super late to this trilogy. To be honest, I started reading Divergent last year but I wasn’t feeling it. At that point, I was more into Contemporary YA rather than Fantasy. I do own a copy of Divergent but not the rest of the trilogy. I would like to read it at some stage but as of right now, I’m more interested in her latest work in progress due for release in 2017 which is Carve The Mark. The cover and premise caught my eye on first sight so I might read that one first before the Divergent trilogy, i’m just not sure.

4, The Young Elites Trilogy by Marie Lu.

I’m slowly reading the Legend trilogy by Marie at the moment and I am absolutely loving it. Legend was such a thrill ride, I can’t even believe how exciting a first book for a trilogy it was. First books are important in my opinion as that can either persuade someone to carry on with the rest of the trilogy or completely bin it but her writing style is just a joy to read. I think that this trilogy will hopefully be just as good as the Legend one.

5, The 5th Wave Trilogy by Rick Yancey.

I’ve seen a ton of mixed reviews and hype surrounding this trilogy and at this moment in time, i’m still on the fence about reading this one. I have the hardback edition of The 5th Wave on my bookshelf in my bookie bedroom but the premise I have to say does look interesting if not a little bit scary with all of the waves. I might never look at a beach in the same way again ahahaha. 😛

So, that is it for this blog post, don’t forgot to hit the like button if you enjoyed it. Let me know (without SPOILERS please!) if you’ve read any of the trilogies mentioned and any thoughts about them. If you know anyone who loves books, tell them about my book blog.

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The Olympics, enrolment for College coming up and trying to hunt down for summer jobs without much success so I gave up on that one.

I’ve been taking a breather away from social media for personal reasons but mainly just to try out new things and other exciting opportunities. Thank you to everyone who have subscribed to my blog within the last few weeks, I really appreciate it. As of right now, I’m not sure when i’m going to be updating again. I hope to next week before I go away for a few days on holiday to spend time with my Gran who I don’t get to see very often.

I am active on Goodreads, you guys know where to find me. But any 2017 releases you are all looking forward to? I have a few, correction, more than a few 😉

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This is my blog post for the 1st of August! Everyday for the month of August, I will be writing and uploading a post each day. So make sure you stayed tuned for that!

The night before I met her (yesterday to be exact), I battled with a serious migraine. Whether it was through listening to a lot of loud music in such a short amount of time, I don’t know. But I had to put down my reading of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to rest for what would be an amazing meet and greet with author Louise O’Neill close to where I live here in England. I first heard about the event a few weeks ago when a bookseller in the Waterstores store that was hosting the talk and signing mentioned it to me and immediately I was like, “Put my name down, I’m so there!” The last meet and greet that I went to was back in February of this year when I went to an event where a bunch of authors read extracts aloud to an audience and then hosted a big signing afterwards.

In the days leading up towards meeting Louise, I started to feel what I have always felt. Even though I knew where I was going and when to leave the house, I felt this huge dark shadow of Anxiety waltz over me. I also realized that this would be the first time attending an event that I would meet other bloggers/vloggers close to my age. I have a lot of Goodreads friends and obviously my following here but my shyness just wanted to trap me in and close me up like a gigantic bubble that would be tricky to pop. So, I made a few moves.

First off, I didn’t go straight to the event. My other love in life is music and I went to the music store HMV to grab a copy of a CD that was released on Friday. Then, I walked to the bookstore and was there an hour early. For those of you who don’t know me personally, when my Anxiety starts to kick in, I feel like I have to be at the allotted place so much earlier than planned. I had a book token to spend so I picked out a hardcover called The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye. I went to go and see my Dad that works in a library close by and spent some time with him purchasing an old 10p withdrawn and offered for sale book by Alyson Noel called Forever Summer which contains two stories in one: Laguna Cove and Cruel Summer. I had the books, now to the event!

After waiting for around five minutes in the rain, I was ushered in up some stairs to the 1st floor of the Waterstones building and asked how old I was. When I replied with my age, I was offered some wine but I opted for supermarket cola instead. I am not a keen drinker of alcohol. Taking my seat in the 4th row, I switched on my phone and tried to tweet about the event and everything but my crappy phone decided to cut all of my data off which doesn’t get refreshed until the 7th of this month, grrr! I was not best pleased. To help ease my Anxiety a little, I tried talking to the people around me, introduced myself and talked about this blog and my Goodreads. It did help to break the ice a little. I also met up some vloggers including… Lucy from Queen of Contemporary! Ahh, it was so exciting! We got talking, well, I tried to talk ahahaha, let’s just say it was part fangirl part social anxiety moment. Stop by her blog guys, seriously. Just go do it: http://www.queenofcontemporary.com/

When the event got underway, Louise looked absolutely amazing and I was so tongue tied that I had no idea what to say. But I sat patiently now moved to the front row with the group just to hear what Louise had to say. And my word, it was an incredible talk. I loved how honest Louise is and when she talked about her friend who is also a writer getting up at 1 in the morning to write, let’s just say I can relate to that quite a bit. Asking For It which is the book I got signed by Louise at the event is a novel that tackles a serious topic: Rape. It is about eighteen year old Emma, a girl from Ireland going to a party one night and waking up the next morning on her front porch having no clue what happened the night before and why she got dumped on a porch. It talks about the events leading up the party and the events after the party. This novel readers shows why it needs to be on everyone’s TBR lists. Louise also talked about her life in Ireland and the news that she is writing her 3rd novel (yay!). I need to read Only Ever Yours because it looks and sounds great. *Adds to the never-ending TBR list.*

After the talk, everyone lined up for the book signing at a different part of the 1st floor. I stood with Lucy and the lovely twins I met so shout-out to you both as well! I think I ended up gate-crashing your vlogging with my weird looking grins ahahaha. So, I may well be on film 😉

Waiting in the queue was actually quite tense for me. With my Social Anxiety, there’s a million things you just want to talk about with someone you meet for the 1st time but in my mind, the dark shadow of Anxiety just prevents me from physically opening my mouth and creating a conversation. I always doubt what I talk about which is the main reason why i’m not a vlogger. My blog works great for me as writing is a better form of communication personally throughout my struggles with self-esteem and self-confidence. I wore my glasses as because of my migraine the previous evening, I thought that my sight would play up on me but I was fine with my head in the end. When the time finally came to meet Louise, inside deep down, I was literally so scared. I didn’t know what to do so I put on my best smile, stepped forward and said hello.

I decided to talk about my Social Anxiety to her and explain that I don’t normally like to put myself into situations like this due to the panic attacks and aftershocks from the past. In reality, I was so close to not attending the event and meeting Louise but I had this quote running constantly in my mind, “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” I used that to help me get out of the house and into the world of books away from my bedroom for one evening.

When I started to talk about my Anxiety, I felt a hush close to me and I was wondering if maybe I said the wrong thing. I am in awe of people who can talk to others so confidently and come up with new conversation starters and I stand, silent cursing myself for what I’ve just said. However, the reaction I got from Louise I was not expecting at all. She told me she knew someone close to her that has Social Anxiety and she thanked me for being able to come down to the event and spend some time with other Louise O’Neill fans. I could tell that she was glad I came. I have to admit, spending an evening in the bookstore surrounded by all of the book displays and great authors is so much better than sitting on the sofa and staring into space for the whole evening. We said our goodbyes and I left the bookstore after saying goodbye to Lucy and the twins.

The weather was awful, as I dodged through the streets, I felt my leggings and shoes dripping wet. I get very nervous if I am walking in the city streets alone in the evening and I’ve always had that fear. I walked quickly, got on a bus and my lovely mum picked me up at the bus stop in her wellies and holding an umbrella. My hero.

So, rounding off this post for today. I just want all of you to know that if you battle with shyness and feel anxious about others. Here’s the thing: Don’t be. Wear a gorgeous smile and walk in tall, shoulders back. You’ve got this, Alice knows you’ve got this OK? *Hugs*

COMING UP ON MY BLOG:

August 2nd- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Overall Review and Reactions.